If you give up control of a game like the Real Madrid players did in the second leg against Chelsea, are 3-0 down with ten minutes to go and are as good as eliminated, and then get through – then they like most obvious explanation lies in the supernatural.

At least that's how it is in the Spanish capital after Real progressed against Chelsea with a 2: 3 after extra time.

Many spoke of the "magic of the Bernabéu Stadium" after Real Madrid reached the semi-finals of the Champions League.

Coach Carlo Ancelotti described them as decisive for the game, Luka Modric and veteran star Emilio Buitragueño, who was Real's center forward from 1982 to 1995, raved about it.

One day after the 3-2 defeat against Chelsea in “El País”, the Spanish cultural journalist Manuel Jabois even wrote about the “Houdini Bernabéu”, the magic of the stadium, which gives the home team supernatural powers and makes the opponents, who are already victorious, tremble in their knees .

It was similar in the round of 16 against Paris.

Real had lost the first leg 0-1, Mbappé then seemed to have shot Real out of the competition in Madrid.

This was followed by three goals by Benzema, which probably only the madmen in the Bernabéu had believed in.

The coaches don't just believe in home advantage

In the press conference after the game, however, Thomas Tuchel saw no sorcery behind his own failure.

The Chelsea boss felt it was one of those defeats where the players could still be proud of their performance.

They almost completely implemented his plan.

Except for a couple of mistakes that led to the few opportunities Real Madrid capitalized on.

Modric and Benzema wouldn't have had many chances but they would have decided the game.

"That's how we have to do it in the future," said the German coach.

Madrid showed off their individual class, such as Modric's seemingly effortless flick of more than 30 meters into the path of substitute Rodrygo, who completed the 1: 3 and thus secured his club extra time in the 79th minute.

In addition to the home advantage, Carlo Ancelotti found other reasons for his team's success, for example mental preparation.

After the 3-1 lead from the first leg, the team didn't exactly go into the game hungry for goals, the Italian criticized himself.

The third goal was like a liberating wake-up call.

He also praised the substitutes.

So Ancelotti took Toni Kroos off the field, he brought Camavinga for him, later Casemiro went for Rodrygo.

It was the German's third substitution in a row in the Champions League, and he was always replaced by the 19-year-old Angolan-born Frenchman.

For the first time, Kroos was extremely upset when he was substituted, but the success proves Ancelotti right.

Camavinga captured a midfield ball before Benzema made it 3-2 and hit the crucial pass to Vinicius,

The Spanish press was also a little undecided afterwards as to whether the spirit of the Bernabéu was enough to explain Madrid's renewed miracle.

They also cheered for Modric, who had turned the game around again with one of his passes and, even in stoppage time, when much younger team-mates were already plagued by leg cramps, conquered balls in midfield with short sprints.

The team never accepted being eliminated, said the 36-year-old, recalling past battles at the Bernabéu.

“We are used to suffering, like against Bayern, Juve, Ajax.

Today is another night like that.”

There are many explanations for the many successful attempts to catch up, the “remontadas” at the Bernabéu Stadium.

Tuchel points to the individual strengths of players like Benzema and Modric, Ancelotti not without reason to his own game-changing changes and Modric to the long experience with the truism that anything can happen before the final whistle in a game.

And, of course, a home advantage can decide games.

But football isn't a totally rational sport and the more nights like this the supporters experience, the more firmly they believe in the myth of the Bernabéu as a unique venue that decides big games.

And her own part in it.